The Kiss

In the local public gardens a pair of swans drifts about on the ponds below the linden allee. On one overcast day the softly rippling water reflected the birds in detail that was lovely and then breath-taking. I noticed that the quivering mirror-imaged reflection formed a heart with the dipping head and neck of the gliding swan . My photograph captured the effect and inspired the poem that is my favorite of last year's flock. It's titled The Kiss. Below is the third of four stanzas.

Before the breeze teased the clouds apart
the swan dipped its head and formed a heart
with a graceful ghost who echoed the bliss
of a day transformed by this watery kiss.


. . . . .

Autumn Thoughts and Keats

The linden trees will bloom as they always do - after I've left for Cape Cod. Walking the allee at the TBC year round and watching them go bare after the gold of autumn it seems to take forever for the flower buds to appear. It is one of the most beautiful gifts of nature - this sweetness. The urn sits along the path and today in early light I noticed the bas relief harvester and was reminded of "To Autumn" by John Keats.

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfullness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves runs;
To bend with apples the moss'd-cottage trees;
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core . . .


. . . .

A Little Sappy

The sap drops on these pine cones invited macro-mode photograhy. Imagine my delight on discovering my reflection on closer examination of the picture. I'm wearing a sun hat that is visible as the dark arc in the lower drop. My arm is visible steadying the pine bough and the camera strap is also apparent.

"Blow On The Coal of The Heart . . . . "

After a day of family sharing, sleep produced one of those dreams that one cannot shake - and perhaps shouldn't. My husband and I in a car - crossing a bridge - the full moon ahead of us in the night sky blinks out. I can still see the dark disc. Filled with stoic foreboding, I turn towards my husband and explain that something's happened as in: "Houston, we have a problem." I'm aware that our sun has vanished and that we have only 8 minutes before the loss of its gravitational effect hurls us into . . . . (Today in wakefulness, it's apparent I had the physics all wrong, but for enlightenment's sake, let's not quibble) I reach toward him in our remaining moments to try to convey my love and gratitude for the shared pilgrimage, whatever lies ahead. . . . "O my soul."

For Katie - Light and Love

Today my great-niece, Katie, was baptized. Prior to the ceremony the priest told the assembled family that babies are always fascinated when the candle symbolizing Christ as light of the world is lit and held before them. There were many smiles as she instinctively reached for the light.

Hubble Deep Field in a Spider Web

"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour."

William Blake

OK. It's a bit of a stretch, but can you, too, see why I smiled down at the mini-universe of this busy spider? This web caught my eye on a morning walk through a nearby woods. The Hubble Space Telescope recorded these distant galaxies, the furthest, 12 billion light years away. The imponderable fact is that this represents a miniscule area of the universe. Hold a dime 75 feet from your face and that is the area of the sky represented in this breath-taking image.

Ohio Roadside

At the end of the lane in Loudonville, Ohio, lies a hill composed of glacial till. Dame's Rocket blooms in the late May sunlight. A sycamore-lined stream cuts down through it and runs past the home of the man who raised cows here for more than a half century. He is now in a nursing home, his mind robbed by Alzheimers. His grandson now looks after the baby calves and their mothers. Life goes on.

Spoiler?

This Turkey Vulture waited with his comrades for the spring day to warm the earth and create a thermal to help them aloft. I photographed him waiting beside the loveliest road where we bounced along in the open jeep, smelling the freshly cut hay and admiring all the floriferous abundance of the country roads. (Click on Turkey Vulture and scroll down to 'Behavior' and read about the activity of urinating on their own legs and vomiting - sorry, but this is very interesting stuff!)

Memorial Day

My father, Robert Leighton Strong, was a 24 year old lieutenant when he landed on Omaha beach, known as bloody beach, on the coast of Normandy. Dad stepped onto France with his gun crew at hour 9. As he left England for the tense voyage across the channel and later as his landing craft maneuverd through the treacherous waters, his mother, Gladys, woke sobbing hysterically, and paced outisde her own parent's bedroom. She was tormented with a sense of ocean waves and motion sickness. For three hours she thought she was losing her mind. How many mothers were assaulted by premonitions of the sort grandma experienced, we cannot know.
I do know that my father, after long years of exhausting, lonely soldiering, his life and those of his men hanging in the balance, came home to Loudonville, Ohio to raise seven children with his bride, Ruth. I also know that many young American boys did not come home to live the fullness of the lives their families had dreamed of for them. This weekend we remember them all.
This weekend I also discovered dad's army knapsack hanging in my brother's office. Dad carried it through Europe and later, back home, carried it on camping trips with his son's boy scout troop. It's hard to think of dad. A little easier with time. It's hard to think of the young boys who didn't return and what they might have brought to their communities and families had they lived. We do know what they brought to a world menaced by fascism, by evil: freedom from tryanny.
Battle lines are not so easily discerned today as they were in the 40's and it seems that many are unwilling to name or are oblivious to the menace that only vigilance and valor will thwart so that future generations can live in the fullness of the promise of freedom.
I hung the knapsack on the cherry tree given to my brother and his wife when dad died. Just beyond it, in the verdant valley below, is the house where dad and mom raised a family and lived the shining dream of America.

What's That Bird?

I know of a young man in Las Vegas who is very good at identifying birds. This is a pretty tough id - made doubly so by my putting the picture in ACDSee to make it an oil painting. This little fellow was picking gnats out of a spider web festooning an outside lantern.

Babies

That time of year.

Fins or Feathers?

What must the carp think of the object floating in the world above - he of scales and gills? If your DNA had to make another round, what would you choose? Bird or fish? If you answer anything but bird over fish we're going to have a serious communication problem :0)
(This carp lives? in the pond at the Toledo Botanic Gardens)

Practicing self-forgiveness

No, not this fellow - me. All was right with the world as I sat parked in my favorite spot in a local metropark. Breeze, happy dogs, the sound of children in the adjacent playground and birdsong - the perfect day, unitil . . . . this guy pulled up beside me where I sat with my feet propped on the dashboard reading the papers I'd been saving for a lull in the birding. The radio sounded from his open blue convertible. He backed into the space and my teeth started to grind as he turned off the motor, walked to the back of his car and left the radio on.

I don't listen to music - ever. This could require a whole post in itself, but - in short - music demands too much of me emotionally or is simply distracting. (Grand exception: live performances - it becomes spiritual when shared with others)

He then opened his trunk, pulled out the lime-colored lounge chair and arranged it on the grass. Next he produced a golf bag and dropped a dozen golf balls beside a picnic table. I'm thinking, "Idiot! You can't hit golf balls in this park around people and kids." More teeth grinding. He walked to his car and poured a little water onto a handkerchief and wiped at the edge of the the blue paint on the car door. "Car nut," I groused.

Then (My God!), he started to take off his shirt. Oh, yuck. I steadied my camera behind the newspaper that trembled in my aggrieved lap. I'd show the bastard - mucking up my perfect perch! I'd record his obdurate cluelessness, this epitome of graceless humanity.

He bent - half-naked now - over his chair to fan it into a receptive shape and as I readied my camera for revenge and he and his paunch sank onto the plastic webbing, I noticed the tags still attached and hanging beneath the chair (look just above the clubs). It was brand new. My finger itched above the shutter release, he settled back in the bright sun, I twiddled with the zoom feature (got you, you jerk!) and then he breathed a sigh, lifted his arms and folded them contentedly behind his balding head. I reflexively clicked the shutter as something clicked in my head and heart.

So, here's to you - whoever you are. From my contrite heart - may your time on this planet, in this too short life, have many more moments like this one I post today-of your moment in the bright spring sun.

A Patch Of Blue

After 10 days of rain this patch of blue opened over the field where I sat finishing Alice Munro's "Runaway". Rain and Munro short stories can dampen spirits. She has been compared to Chekhov. Her short stories are exquisite. They are painful. I was happy for this little patch of sunny blue.

Finally, the Sun

After 10 days of obscuring clouds, our beautiful sun once again illuminated the treetops and the shadowed interiors of our hearts. My mother, sister Beth and I celebrated our stars re-emergence by birding, birding, birding. I'm so exhausted that I'm spelling worse than usual and will probably have to re-edit this post tomorrow. The pictures of the black throated blue warbler, oriole and golden winged warbler are very inadequate ehoes of a day of light, mystery and joy.

Thoreau's Dandelion

"A dandelion gone to seed, a complete globe, a system in itself." Thanks to Greg for the quote from Thoreau's Journal May 9, 1858. It would seem this beetle has found an adequate globe, or at least a convincing forest in a yellow nova of petals. (Click on the photo twice to see tree trunks)

Turdus Migratorius

That's me being channeled by an American Robin (turdus migratorius).
It's a tough job, singing all the notes - getting spring launched. So many rain-stippled puddles to monitor, blossoms to sift over baby goslings, midges to hatch, warblers to name, melodies to tease apart - the heart racing to keep apace. I'll be dragging back to reality when it's all over and pray that my solid friends and family have waited patiently for this little turdus to show a little consideration for less ephemeral, more sustaining things - like family and friends. Sorry.

So Much Beauty

The month of May is exhausting. It's doubly so for birders. A narrow 'birdy' window of opportunity opens and closes around this month of blossoms and showers. Where to turn next becomes the issue of the day. Ah, the trials and tribulations of sunny, breezy, rainy, bird-laced -exhausting- May. In the 'oil paint' filter tool in ACDSee these mallards and blossoms and linden tree refelections became even more lovely.

Cows

These eyes watched me last weekend, sitting on the hill above Loudonville, Ohio. I can't recommend cow watching. It's what turned me into a 'poulatarian' 5 years ago. Nuff said.

Parenthood

No words necessary, except that these attentive parents were photographed at Magee Marsh on the southern edge of Lake Erie, my haunt for the month of May, as the migrants drop in to rest before heading across the lake.